Cyclone rips into Bangladesh

HUNKERING DOWN:About 800,000 people spent the night in more than 2,000 cyclone evacuation shelters in Bangladesh, while 70,000 were evacuated in Myanmar

AFP, CHITTAGONG, Bangladesh

A man walks in the rain with a makeshift cover at the Thetkalpyin temporary relief camp near Sittwe, Myanmar, yesterday.

Photo: EPA

A cyclone ripped into the Bangladeshi coast yesterday as hundreds of thousands of people hunkered down in evacuation shelters, including in a region of Myanmar torn by communal unrest.

Two people died as Cyclone Mahasen hit Bangladesh’s southern Patuakhali coast, officials said, while heavy rains and strong winds also lashed neighboring Myanmar’s northwest coast, home to tens of thousands of displaced Muslim Rohingya.

Weather officials said that Mahasen was likely to whip the heavily populated coastline stretching from Bangladesh’s second city Chittagong to the Cox’s Bazaar tourist region in the afternoon, but fears of widespread damage receded as Mahasen appeared to have lost some of its power after languishing over the Bay of Bengal for several days and it made landfall packing winds of up to 90kph.

“Cyclone Mahasen started crossing the Patuakhali coast at 9am Thursday,” said Shamsuddun Ahmed, deputy director of the Bangladesh Meteorological Department. “It is not a severe cyclone. It did not gain strength in the last part of its journey as it hit the coast.”

Provincial administrator Nurul Amin said two elderly people had been killed, one drowning after being swept into a lake. Reports said the second victim was hit by a falling tree.

Low-lying areas were submerged by a 1m storm surge, less than earlier feared.

“We’re lucky that it hit the coast during low tide,” Ahmed said.

About 800,000 people spent the night in more than 2,000 cyclone shelters, as well as schools and colleges, along Bangladesh’s long coastline.

Jahangir Alam, 22, took his paralyzed mother to the Patenga Girls School in Chittagong, carrying her up to the third floor, which had been turned into a makeshift cyclone shelter.

“We live in a low-lying area, so we didn’t want to take any risk. The government gave us food last night,” he said.

Chan Mia, who had taken his family of seven to the same shelter, said the main concern was about the storm surges.

“We are not afraid of the wind. We are more worried about storm surges that can sweep the village within minutes,” the 50-year-old said.

Of the total, 600,000 people alone were evacuated in the Chittagong region, provincial administrator Mohammad Abdullah said.

“We have enough food, medicine and other facilities in these shelters,” he said, adding that the armed forces were on standby.

Mohammad Mehrajuddin, an elected local government head of southern Nijhum Dwip Island, said by telephone that many villagers in his area did not move to cyclone shelters for fear their cattle would be stolen.

There was a similar reluctance to move among the Muslim Rohingya across the border in Myanmar, reflecting a deep mistrust of the security forces and local Buddhists after communal violence last year.

State media in Myanmar said that by Wednesday 70,000 people had been evacuated from the camps and vulnerable local villages.

About half of the residents at one camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) on the outskirts of the state capital Sittwe appeared to have moved out overnight, journalists who visited yesterday morning said.

Than Win, 38, was among those staying behind to guard his tent.

“Some of the IDPs do not trust the authorities,” he said.

“They worry that they will be kept elsewhere and will never be able to come back,” he said, adding that the rest of his family had moved to higher ground.